Normal review

When you think of some small town in Minnesota, do you think of action, intrigue, explosive excitement? No? Me neither. I think of ice augers, hot dish and grumpy old men, not automatic weapons, rocket launchers and C4 explosives. This week’s movie, “Normal”, might just blow your mind about small town Minnesota. Bob Odenkirk stars as Sheriff Ulysses Richardson who is serving as the temporary sheriff in the small town of Normal, Minnesota. At first it’s what he expects. Overly friendly people, potlucks and snow. Along the way, he sees some suspicious things that make his curiosity alarm bells go off such as the police armory with a weapons stockpile you could invade a small country with. Then a bank robbery lights the fuse on the town having to reveal its dark secret to the new sheriff and soon it’s adios Minnesota nice, hello Minnesota mayhem. Is it worth checking this out at the theater? Watch this episode of Movies Merica to find out! “Normal” also stars Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Lena Headey, Henry Winkler, Reena Jolly, Brendan Fletcher, Peter Shinkoda, Jess McLeod and David Lawrence Brown. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today I spoiler-free a movie that combines OGS and you betcha Fargo vibes with John Wick, or maybe more appropriate to this movie, John Gustafson. That movie is normal, which combines hot dish with hot action, with Bob Odenkirk playing a sheriff who finds out that all is not normal in normal Minnesota. If dealing with grumpy old men in this small town was all he had to deal with, that'd be a luxury. He's not that lucky, as you'll learn on today's Movies America Live. Welcome to this latest episode of Movies America Live. As always, I am your not-so-humble host, Van Ebert, aka Movies America. And I want to welcome my movie maniacs and my fellow freedom-fueled film fanatics here today to Movies America HQ. And then if we have any uh newbies in here, any Daisy Fresh rookies to the show, hey, well, uh, welcome. Good to see you here as well. Thanks for watching, even if it's just for a few minutes. And I always remind everybody that, hey, you know what, even if you can only watch for a few minutes, hey, go ahead and do that. And you know what? The best thing is is it's free. Exactly. There we go. It's free. I know that that's what matters to a lot of people nowadays. Like, yeah, but it doesn't cost anything. Does it even cost a nickel? Doesn't even cost a nickel. All you gotta do is just fire up the show link there. It'll get you into the show. You'll just be watching the show. And yeah, watch for a few minutes at absolutely no cost to you. Okay, there you go. But today we're gonna be talking about normal, as I said there in the intro with Bob Odenkirk. Uh, doing kind of a variation of his character from the nobody movies, you know, where he looks like some normal middle-aged guy, you know, fighting, you know, love handles and, you know, not being able to satisfy his wife. But, you know, but secretly he's like some, you know, ex-Special Forces professional hitman character. But uh in normal, he's neither of those last two things, okay? He's uh special forces, he's not he's not John Rambo uh in this movie right here, but uh, but it's still exciting, all the same right there. But before we really do a deep dive on this movie here, just want to remind everybody that we do have the live chat available on this show. I mean, that's one of the perks of doing a live show here. And nothing says that you have to get into the live chat and you know, write uh uh war and peace or, you know, or a whole novel in there. You can simply get in the live chat and like give me a like a thumbs up emoji or just say hi or anything like that. Again, free of charge, doesn't cost you anything whatsoever, right there, everybody, okay? And uh let's get into it. Let's get into some uh normal here and let's make normal seem normal, okay? But uh this movie is directed by Ben Wheely. I know, I know. You're like, that Ben Wheelie? Household name Ben Wheely? I can't, I can't. I know. Nobody knows who Ben Wheelie is, okay? More people know Ben Folds 5 than Ben Wheelie, okay? Um but yeah, he's uh kind of a not kind of, he is a director and you know, uh a very um unknown director there. That to his credit, though, he did direct this pretty good movie called Free Fire that came out a few years ago. That's even more unknown than Ben Wheelie, okay? Uh Free Fire is another one of you know thousands of movies that have been released that is a fantastic, awesome movie, but people just don't see it. And not entirely, it's not entirely their fault. You know, the movie is like poorly marketed, you know, you just you don't see any advertisements for it. So how are you supposed to know to go see it if you don't ever see the ads for it, right? So so I'm not gonna put that on, I'm not gonna put that on the people, you know, entirely or anything like that. But but yeah, if you uh if you if you you know basically just look up Free Fire on any of the streaming services there, and I'm sure you'll be able to find Free Fire, at least available to to purchase somewhere. But but all that to say is yeah, Ben Wheely, who directed this movie, normal, uh, directed a great movie called Free Fire a few years ago. It's got uh like Bree Larson in it, right after she won her Oscar, and um, you know, the uh that cannibal Army Hammer, and uh it's got um uh it's got uh uh Killian uh Murphy. Uh Killian Murphy there, you know, way before kind of before let's rephrase before he won his Oscar for Oppenheimer, okay? So Killian Murphy's in it as well. So uh good movie, good movie. But anyway, we're here to talk about normal, not free fire here. And look kind of like I mentioned before, Bob Odenkirk is uh in this. He stars this movie as Sheriff, get this name Ulysses Richardson. Yeah. Yeah, Ulysses Richardson right there, one of the all-time great names in movies uh there. So uh apparently his parents really were into Greek gods and all of that stuff. But uh that also has uh Lena Heedy or Hetty, or if I've I never tried to I never figured out how to say her last name. Uh, but you know, from Game of Thrones, uh who else? Oh, Henry Winkler, you know, it's got the Fonz in it. Uh if De Fonds was like your grandfather, okay? There you go. And an assorted other cast of characters in this movie as well. But uh, and it just uh just takes place in this little town up in Minnesota, a snowy little small town called Normal here. But instead of me uh just uh rambling on about it here, I mean I'll go into the plot a little bit here, a little bit, a little bit after this, right here, but uh just to give you just to give you a little taste, uh here's eh, let's just play the trailer.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

Why don't we welcome to normal Minnesota? A charming, unassuming town where time moves slow, and a friendly face is always just around the corner. You'll never be far from our local mayor, dedicated deputy sheriff, a friendly man, cheerful store owners, cozy, all in our town boost.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Welcome to North Seems like a nice town.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Might want to visit sometime, maybe uh get some of that hot dish, maybe some good old Minnesota meatloaf or something like that. So, well, yeah, just for some peace and quiet, uh, yeah, I might want to go there and uh just visit old normal uh there. And then uh once the once the uh once the gunfighting, you know, once the uh the murderous mayhem starts, then you know, maybe lay low and crawl out of town uh there. Maybe uh jump on the nearest snowmobile and get the hell out. So there you go. But but yeah, the plot here, I'll go into it a little bit here. It's uh just all about Bob Odenkirk's sheriff character, and he's just there temporarily because the former sheriff of this town uh was uh just was found dead. Just, you know, outside, uh frozen and whatnot, with an ice auger in one hand and a fishing rod in another. And so Bob Odenkirk shows up at this uh at this uh particular little small town called normal, and hey, everything seems normal. Yeah, so he he's the sheriff, and it seems quiet and normal, and everyone's friendly. And then after a little bit, like you kind of hear there, like little little breadcrumbs in there, uh, he starts realizing, hey, you know, something's not quite right about this town. I mean, uh, I'm looking here in the police station arsenal, and it looks like they got enough weapons to invade a small country. I mean, if anybody ever wants to reinvade Grenada, just come here to this police station. You got plenty of weapons uh here to do that with. Uh, then, like, you know, the nice old lady who runs a yarn store. She's got a CB and she's got a police scanner. You're like, what? What's that all about? You know, so what she's like, oh yeah, I run the yarn barn, but I like to have a police scanner on, you know, that kind of thing. So uh things like that. And then of course, on top of that, like um, you've got the this bar, and they've got like just the whole decor on the wall is just nothing but guns. Okay, you know, which, you know, hey, if you're a gun lover, hey, you know, you you think it you think it's great, you know, but Bob Owenkirk's character is like looking around right before he like orders some meatloaf. He's like, God, everything on the on the wall is guns. Alright, okay, whatever. I'm okay. Hey, don't break into this place right here. All right, you're gonna get your ass uh turned into Swiss cheese if you ever try to rob this bar here or this restaurant, whatever. Uh so he sees these various things and just kind of like you know gets his spidey sense going, and he's like, hmm, something's not right. And then, you know, after a while, things like just something breaks out. They have a bank robbery, and if you watch like some of the other trailers to the show or to this movie, you'll realize, oh, this break the this bank robbery that gets botched just sets everything off right there, and then it's just mayhem and murder and guns blazing, rounds flying all over the place, okay? Uh, you know, it just completely just goes off the handles right there. It goes from Fargo to Rambo in like five seconds in this movie. But but that's uh that's about as much of a plot as I'm gonna go into uh there. It is a fascinating plot to it. Like once you know the entire plot and you know the ins and outs and all that stuff. It's a fascinating plot there. And it was like, oh yeah, I'm surprised nobody made a movie uh about this uh you know before here. But uh yeah, it's uh it's it's definitely uh worth going to see. So I'm uh just giving up my stuff right off the bat. I'm gonna recommend going to see this movie uh here. But uh anyway, we've got more, we've got more normal to talk about, alright? All right. And as I more than insinuated in my opening to the show here, normal is like a mashup of Fargo, uh Nobody, and John Wick. That would make sense since the writer of Normal, Derek Colstad, also wrote Nobody and a couple of the John Wick movies. I think he wrote like the first two, and then he had somebody else uh take take the reins from there. But but the the whole the whole character of John Wick and then Winston and then you know the continental, all the stuff you associate with John Wick actually came from the noggin of Derek Colstad that wrote this this very movie right here. And like in nobody, Colstad's script combines exciting action with genuinely funny people and situations, all right. Now, that's one thing about this movie is people in this movie they actually say more than seven words throughout the whole movie. As we know in the John Wick movies, you're lucky if you get like 11 words out of uh out of Keanu, the whole damn movie right there. All right. I mean, he's got he's got more rounds in one mag than words that come out of his mouth in most of the John Wick movies right there. And the first act of normal is fascinating because it's the calm, peaceful part where the sheriff is, you know, meeting seemingly friendly, simple people, you know, punctuated every once in a while by something that makes normal seem not quite right. It's like the community version of when you can tell your kid is hiding something in their hand behind their back, and you ask them like if they have anything, and they just continually mutter like you know it's a cover-up. You know your kids like lying their ass off to you, like, I know you got something in your hand, all right? It's you know, whatever it is, probably a cookie or something like that. You know it's a cover-up, but what is being covered up? Now the townspeople in normal, they're funny, they're goofy, and some are overly friendly. Like, like their kindness is concealment, uh, especially the sheriff's deputy who dished out borderline, creepy kindness to the sheriff constantly. I mean, he's like doing stuff like he's stopping in to the sheriff's office, you know, just to just a comment about, hey, hey, uh, sheriff, your mustache is a lot like my mustache.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

We're like, we're like mustache brothers or something, man. Isn't that cool? Hey, can I freshen up your coffee for you?

SPEAKER_02 14:14

You know, like kind of a, you know, not kinda, definitely annoying. You're kind of just overdoing it, over kind of overbearing kindness, if that is such a thing right there. And then we have the mayor that you saw there in the trailer. We got the mayor played by the great Henry Winkler, obviously, again, Nafons from years ago. And oh, his mayor character is especially part sociable, part sinister. All right. So, and let's just say something happens to the mayor that is um quite explosive. Okay, we'll we'll put it that way. Now, Colstad, again, the writer of the movie, creates a fascinating plot that involves international criminality that might be closer to the truth in today's age than we like to think here in America. Since nowadays, we pretty much just let anybody and everybody in this country now, okay? So they just could we let everybody in and they can bring all the dirts and seediness and criminality that they they want to bring in with them. So it this is kind of very true to real life here nowadays in this uh country we live in now. Now, as you briefly saw in that trailer I played, normal has some good old bloody violence. Sure, it's the land of 10,000 lakes, but it's also the land of 10,000 rounds firing all over the place in this action comedy, uh, affectionately called normal here. So, and I'll acknowledge this. Yeah, the the title of the movie Normal, it's gonna turn some people off. You know, it's not an it's not an exciting, you know, it's not this magnetic title that people are like, oh my god, I gotta go see this movie. Normal? It's boring, all right? Like, why don't we just you know call it belly button lint or you know, or uh dust or something even more boring than that. This is this is not a this is not a uh you know an exciting movie title or anything like that. I mean, you can even put slap the Marvel logo in front of normal, and probably you're not gonna get that many people going to see it, you know, Marvel, Star Wars, DC, whatever you want. Okay, so but ignore the boring title. This movie is definitely not boring whatsoever, okay? And also on top of that, if you judge how good a movie is based on the title, you're boring. All right. There you go. All right, moving on. We got more normal to talk about. And so Bob Ownkirk does a variation of his nobody character, but without the special forces slash highly trained assassin background. He's more of like an upright version of the Minnesota Sheriff he played in Fargo season one. And if you've seen Fargo season one right there, you'll look at his character in Normal and be like, wow, that looks a lot like the sheriff that he played in season one of the Fargo TV series there. But here in Normal, he's a go with the flow, easygoing and flexible kind of sheriff, you know, in-man overall, but with some definite demons from his past. All right, this guy he shares a story uh to at least one character in this where you're like, wow. Okay, alright. Um, alright, there we okay. So uh yeah, this guy, this guy's been through this guy's been through some shit over here. So uh, and uh, you know what? I'm not going to discount this guy right there. He's uh he's dealing with some stuff, so um, yeah, there we go. Not everything's all happy go lucky with this movie uh there. But now again, the main theme of of this movie, or one of the main things of this movie, uh, is that the sheriff has no idea what he's walked into, and the townspeople are determined to keep it that way. However, Bob Odenkirk's character in this, he was a full-time regular sheriff for a lot of years, as he says. And when his spidey sense tells him there's something wrong, he goes with it, okay? And Odenkirk is masterful at showing empathy towards some of the down and out characters in this little town. And later they end up being his allies. Now, as I say that, you might be like, that's boring. Who cares? That's not a that's not the thing about a movie that you know blows my skirt up or you know, makes me all excited or gets me all pumped up and whatnot. But it all adds up to a movie where at the end the payoff uh is phenomenal because of these little little idiosyncrasies of the movie there, like the sheriff, you know, being uh, you know, being an easy-going, flexible kind of guy, and and and you know, being friendly to the downtrodden and you know, the the look down upon people in this town right there. But trust me, trust me, it'll yeah, it'll be worth it in the end once you see this movie right there. Just hearing me talk about it, I know. It's a snooze fest. I get it, I get it. Now he even he even befriends a moose that occasionally makes appearances in town, which funny enough, it actually makes the mayor jealous. As the mayor explains, he's never seen that effing moose, all right? Because the moose just wanders around town, gets into stuff, and here's the mayor. He's been obviously in this town, I would guess, his whole life, and here's his sheriff. He just got into town, he sees this town moose, uh, this, this, uh, you know, this uh elusive moose, and the mayor is all you know, bent out of shape because he's never seen the moose his whole damn life. Now, writer Derek Colstad writes surprisingly compelling and intriguing dialogue between his characters, uh, especially between the sheriff and Lena Heatys or Heddy's. One of these days I'm gonna learn how to say her last name correctly. I'm gonna go with Lena Heaty's bar owner character. And then there's a character named Alex, like this young woman uh who's the daughter of the deceased town sheriff. Remember that sheriff I was telling you, that that basically they found he was a popsicle uh there. And so yeah, he's she's the daughter of the deceased town sheriff who Ulysses is subbing in for until obviously they find they elect like a permanent sheriff there. However, if Odenkirk isn't careful, he's going to get typecast in a role like this. Like, remember, like Liam Neeson got you know typecast as like you know, like rogue assassins or rogue cops, you know, after he did all those taken movies uh there. So plus with that mustache that Bob Owenkirk has in this movie Normal, he looks an awful lot like his Saul Goodman working at Cinnabon in Nebraska role in Better Call Saul when you know he's he's he's on the lamb, right? He's uh trying to evade and elude the you know, elude law enforcement in Better Call Saul there. It's like a continuing theme through Better Call Saul, and you know, he's doing that by relocating to Nebraska and working at a Cinnabon in a mall uh there. So it looks kind of like that that character right there. But real quick here, here's an interview with him about uh normal, uh, where uh you know, which also features Lena Heaty. Again, I'm going with that pronunciation, Lena Heaty, who which I have to I have to say, it's fascinating. Speaking of Lena, there, it's fascinating to s you know to to see. Queen Cersei from Game of Thrones playing this small town, Minnesota Minnesota Barkeep. I mean, she goes from this massive epic HBO series and being in that for what 70 or what was it, yeah, eight eight seasons there, to just playing like this kind of just normal uh you know little barkeep character in this movie. But again, here's an interview with Bob Oldkirk and Lena Heaty.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Bob, uh, I I I used to watch Mr. Cher religiously, and and for as much range as you would show, I never would have guessed you'd become such an action star. It's been so cool to see, and you've completely risen to the occasion in these movies. What's been most rewarding about this unlikely rise? And now doing three of these movies written by Derek.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Uh it's fun to play a prank on the universe and on all your fans and friends. Um it really is fun to do something so outside the box. And of course, the fact that it worked, which is to say, I got to do more than one, is crazy. Um, because uh obviously, nobody, if it hadn't worked, I would have looked like an absolute midlife crisis idiot. Which I don't mind looking like. I don't mind, that's a thing. If it didn't work, I would have been like, yeah, well, who would have thought that would work? Why, you know, it's um but showbiz is a is a uh is a business that it's hard, but you can reinvent yourself. Um of course I gave it everything I had. I never stopped working to do a good job, but that doesn't mean it'll work out. We're I very feel very lucky that it did.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, that hard work definitely has paid off. And Lena, this takes place in normal Minnesota, and Minnesota has a very iconic accent. Um, how is it finding your voice and a sort of Midwest sensibility that is all throughout this film?

SPEAKER_04 24:03

Uh I I mean I think Moira had a sort of outside the small town sensibility. She, you know, we discussed it. She kind of spent a time in New York and had kind of come back to the town and knew everything that was going on. Um and she's you know, she's a barkeeper, so she hears and sees it all.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

And Bob, your character is clearly in a rut. He's afraid to make decisions, and then he's thrown into the situation where he really has to act. What did you like most about this character?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Well, I've spent uh a long time now playing characters who are younger than me, and I think sort of more naive about life than me. And so playing a guy like Ulysses who's almost too worn out, he's almost uh too beat up. But I like playing somebody who had lived life and kind of uh got set back on his heels and uh had to uh you know, it just felt like a guy who was my age and maturity level. So I appreciated that.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, it's a really fun character. And and Lena, there's this great scene between you and Bob near the gel cells later on. It's really one of the key story beats. How how is it having that showdown with Bob and what kind of stood out about him as a scene partner?

SPEAKER_04 25:22

Bob's very shut down and kind of sticks to the words, and you're not really allowed to play. So it was pretty frustrating uh to be fair.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

No, you know me.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

I he's a clerk. No, he's bad. I mean, Bob's really generous and uh allows you to play.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

But look, when you're just hate him, recognizes as they say on the streets.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

Midlife recognizes midlife.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Uh you know when you're in a room with people who are Did you ever see the bear, the TV show The Bear? Yeah, you ever see the Christmas episode? Yes, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Well, that's me and Lena in that scene in the jail cell. It's two actors, they got some meat on the bone and they both tear at it. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Fascinating, fascinating, right there. So just a yeah, here from uh Bob Owenkirk and Lena Heaty right there. So I was I saw Lena Heaty there. I kept on waiting for her to like bust out uh you know, some kind of you know, Queen Cersei, some bitchy Queen Cersei line from Game of Thrones right there. Also, remember she was the uh the main baddie on the fantastic movie Dread with uh Carl Urban, the uh criminally, criminally underseen Dread when it came out at the theaters, you know, came out uh at the movies right there. And now it's a beloved movie right there. But anyway, so yeah, I just wanted to give you some inside stuff there uh from old Bob and Lena there about uh about normal. All right. So hopefully you guys are hearing what I'm saying right now, and you're like, oh my god, I can't I can't wait to go see normal.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Hey, honey, honey, check the show times for normal. Normal, that's a foreign name for a movie. Who cares? Oh, movies merck. Old Van over here is telling us to go see normal right there. So do it, woman.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

All right, there you go. That's hopefully what you guys are saying there. Or, you know, or the you know, the shoe, the tides might be turning, like, hey, look on the movies, uh, you know, time there, you know, husband. All right, get on it, hub, hubby. There you go. So, all right. Depending on who wears the pants in the family, okay? There you go. All right, so enough about that right here. Uh, I'm getting thirsty. Maybe you're getting thirsty too. I've been uh sipping off a beer over here the whole time. Hopefully you guys are too, or drinking whatever you guys are drinking. Maybe uh you're drinking a Cosmo, um, you know, or you're just drinking water, whatever the hell you're drinking. Go to town, do it to it. I'm drinking a brew, and not only am I drinking a brew, I'm reviewing a brew here on Brew Review Time. All right, let me allow me to uh introduce you to the brew for today right there. Let me just let me give you a good look right there. There you go. And this is uh, and I'm sure I'm gonna blow this pronunciation right here, uh, is Westmal or Wassmali Trappis Dubel, Dubelle, or something like that. So I know I'm an ugly American, I don't know how to pronounce words right there. But uh, yeah, this is a Belgian dubel or double style beer here. And uh it if you can actually see in a bottle if I poured into a pine glass, you see that it's a dark reddish-brown ale here. And this brew goes way back in the day. Now, not that, not this particular bottle right here, but I mean just the brew itself there, uh actually was uh started to uh get uh brewed here like a what it like the like I don't know the ninth century or something like that. So, I mean, because it was actually first brewed uh and it still is brewed by uh Trappist monks uh there. And uh Trappist monks, you might be wondering, where's the name Trappist come from? Well, it comes from, but there's a town in France called La Trappe or Trapez or however the French say that. And so uh that's where the the word Trappist uh comes from, as far as Trappist Monks right there. And uh still to this day it's uh brewed in uh that this town of uh West Mall or Molly, hence the name of the beer right there, uh, which is in the Antwerp province of Belgium. And they brew it in this place called the Abbey of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. There, yeah. There you go. And again, it's still a bunch of Trappist monks uh that are brewing that in there. And uh actually, it's uh, you know, we actually had an idea. This was first brewed in 1836. So it was not first brewed back in the ninth century, but 1836 is still quite a while ago, okay? I mean, that was like what uh Joe Biden's 35th birthday right there. So still quite a ways away, still quite, you know, still quite a bit back there. Uh, and I say that uh they have, you know, with all that time, they have perfected this recipe. They perfected this brew because this stuff is pretty damn good. And so I'm telling you right here, right now, you should uh get this beer right here, right now. Okay, so and it comes to us with an alcohol by volume of 7% and a IBU rating of 30. And so IBU stands for International Bitterness Units, basically how much bitter or how bitter it is right there. So 30 is not that bad. Okay. Uh now, well, that's if uh you don't like bitter beers right there. So it's not that bad. You might like bitter beers. I mean, you might be a big, you know, double IPA fan, which are very, very bitter right there. And uh, so yeah, so the let's get into the nitty-gritty. Let's do a deep dive on this beer here. So the ingredients that they make this with are, of course, water, barley malt, candy sugar, six European flour hop varieties, and a proprietary Westball yeast strain, and a partridge, and a petry. Yeah, all that stuff right there, okay. And then as far as the carbonation there, it's naturally high due to secondary fermentation or bottle conditioning, resulting in tight champagne-like boo-boos. Okay, there you go. But uh, yeah, I mean, this just proves, yeah, that those Trappist monks, especially the ones in uh in Belgium, can make themselves some beer. That is for sure. All right. And uh now I think that you know, what I like to do here as I'm talking about brew and reviewing a brew here is I don't want to just talk about the beer. I also like to talk about like what foods that the brews pair well with here. And so this beer uh goes very, very well according to the experts, okay? Uh it goes very well with like a mushroom risotto, all right, uh, or beef carbonade or something like that. So basically it goes good with beef stew. Okay, beef stew. Uh if you got like a nice kind of like uh uh Americanized comfort dish that involves rice or something like that, um, you know, think of uh oh, I don't know, like if you just like get yourself like a big box of rice aroni, you know, beef, beef rice or something like that, it'd probably go good with that right there. So um, you know, or like um some probably some low-main, something like that. So there you go, go pretty good with that. Uh goes good with rich stews and gamey meats like venison there. Uh now, of course, I mean, we're talking France, we're talking you know, Belgium. So, of course, we got to talk cheeses, right? And so this beer would go good with like a good, well-aged gouda, uh, blue cheese. Now, if you ask me, I hate blue cheese. Blue cheese doesn't go good with anything other than a garbage can. So, um, or some washed Ryan Abbey cheeses there. All right, we're getting fancy. I mean, we're getting very cultured up in this brew review time over here. So, or if you want to, and this may sound weird to beer drinkers, but if you want to try it with like a dessert or with some dessert items, you can try it with chocolate truffles or fruit-based sweets like blackberries right there. Okay, so we're all about culture here on Movies America. There, alright. Don't want to just tell you about the beer. I want to tell you about some good foods that it pairs well with. So uh, you're living your best life there, everybody. There you go, okay. But enough of me talking about uh this brewery right here. I'm really dying to get another drink off this because, like I said, this is some good stuff. All right, so yep, check that out right there. But it's kind of a nice, you know, simplified bottle right there, you know, not too much to it or anything like that. So and again, we're talking about we're talking about monks that make this brew right here. So they're not gonna go over the top, you know, they're gonna keep things simple and all that stuff here with their brew. But and also, like, you know, talking about those crazy, crazy monks that brew this beer. Uh, they also make stuff like uh oh, like uh fruit cake, uh cheese, um yogurt, stuff like that. So stuff, so that kind of thing right there. So they've got uh stuff like that that uh that they make right there because they gotta keep business because you know they've they swore a vow of celibacy. I don't know, brewing beer replaces that. I I'm pretty sure probably it does not, but uh uh I'm not going to uh not gonna try that anytime soon right there. So, all right, let's do this here real quick. And we're gonna wrap up this brewery time, but real quick, I should probably let you know uh that actually you can get an app like the open bar app on your phone. It's available like on on Android and iOS there. Um if you've got this beer in town, you can get it Uber Eats. Uber Eats doesn't just deliver your Taco Bell now, they'll deliver booze to your door. And if you if you live nowhere near where this beer is available at, uh you can go to uh someplace like uh the website, gopuff.com, which specializes in getting beer anywhere. Okay, so say you live in the North Pole, but you want to get yourself a nice six-pack of uh you know some cervasa. You know, you're gonna get your uh six pack, you want to get a six pack of corona, and you live with your sled dogs in the north in the North Pole. So you've got no sir, you've got no corona anywhere near you, right? Well, it's a fireupsomgopuff.com and they'll get you that corona or some modello your way right there. And uh now it might cost us some scratch right there, but they will get that beer in your hand. So there you go. Check that out. Just wanted to let you guys know all about that, so then I am not you know just hogging all the good beer to my stuff. But I don't want to be that guy, all right. I'm trying to trying to change my evil ways here, right? But again, with that, let's wrap up this brew review time. So, what should we do next, everybody? Here, I mean, we gotta we got some more uh normal to talk about, don't we? I know we do. So let's go ahead and let's move on here with the show. All right, got an itchy shoulder over here. There we go. All right, hate when that happens, right? There you go. All right, so we got more normal to talk about, and more specifically, I have got some random thoughts about normal. And the movie Normal does that thing we've seen in modern action movies where you play a seemingly mismatched song during some high-intensity gunplay. Stuff like playing uh the song A Beautiful Day. I forget who does that song, but uh like playing this A Beautiful Day, like this low-key, you know, very peaceful, kind of hippie kind of song uh during a gunfight at a bank robbery, or like Dr. Hook's, you know, when you're in love with a beautiful woman playing over the big, you know, finale gunfight and battle and all that. However, it doesn't feel contrived because the rest of the movie has earned it, like I was talking about before, with where the writer Derek Holstad, he writes, you know, this Sheriff Ulysses uh Henderson, I think his name is his name. Like how he gets along with all the characters and like there's all this good character development and character arcs and all that stuff. All of that adds up to the point where, yeah, when they start playing, when they start doing these needle drops during the action scenes, it doesn't feel contrived right there. It's the opposite. Let's let's put it this way it's the opposite of that Suicide Squad movie that came out what back in 2016, uh, that had like a needle drop every 3.2 seconds since those filmmakers thought, you know, we don't have to worry about interesting characters and a good story here in this Suicide Squad movie. We'll just be like Guardians of the Galaxy and just keep playing hit songs instead. Hit song after hit song after hit song. That's gonna be our secret to success right there. Except to give Guardians credit, Guardians remembered the interesting characters and good story part, and so does Normal. You gotta have those first two crucial ingredients: interesting characters, good story, all right, in order to earn the good needle drops for the needle drops to really like, you know, have some impact when you do do the needle drop right there. And then another random thought I had about the movie Normal is this movie would play very, very well during like a Minnesota-based films festival there. I mean, you could add this to a film festival list with like Fargo and Grumpy Old Men, Nobody's Fool, remember Nobody's Fool with uh Paul Newman and Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith there. That movie took place in a small Minnesota town. All movies were introduced to quirky Minnesota towns and characters, you know, all with a subtext of conflict. Some conflict involving family ties, and others involving bullets, bombs, and of course, wood chippers. All right. There you go. But those are just some random thoughts I had about the movie Normal again, which is a movie you should definitely go see, everybody. All right. So because God knows it needs it needs the numbers because it came in at the number seven spot at the at the box office uh this week. Now, that's partly because it wasn't in as many theaters as some of the bigger movies that that came out there, like you know, Super Mario Galaxy and Project Hail Mary and some of those movies, Hoppers and what was that, You Me and Tuscany or some stupid romantic comedy. Ugh. All right. So that's that explains some of the lower numbers, but also I think probably the big thing that explains lower numbers is a movie title like normal, okay? All right. And because a lot of people just kind of hear I mean, it like a lot of people uh stupidly decide, am I gonna see a movie based on the movie title? Uh-huh. Okay. And so if that's your if that's your mentality, then yeah, you're probably not going to rush out to go see a movie called Normal, okay? But but you should. You should. So uh yeah, definitely go in and check out that movie. Uh, real quick here, uh just let me take a couple minutes here, just to remind you that this Sunday show, this Movies America live show, is not the only Movies America show that there is on during the week. Um, I also do my Thursday night show, and that is my Movies America spoiler warning show. And uh that's where I talk about the same movie that I talk about here on Sunday. I talk about that on Thursday night, but I don't worry about dropping spoilers on Thursday night. Okay, if I drop a spoiler on Thursday night, that's all good because again, the name of the show on Thursday night is Movies America Spoiler Warning. So I'm even warning you with the name of the show that there could be some spoilers, okay? And so yeah, join me on Thursday night there where we'll be talking about normal in more uh detail. I'll be doing a deeper dive. I'll be you know busting out the scapel and the suction. We'll do an autopsy on this sucker. And uh that show comes on Thursday night at 7 Eastern, 6 Central, 5 mountain, and 4 p.m. uh Pacific time uh there on Thursday night. There, and easy to watch it. All you gotta do is like, you know, if you want to go to my ex account, uh, which is under at Movies America, or you can go to my Facebook uh page, uh, you know, or just go to Rumble or YouTube and just type in Movies America and normal. There you go. And you'll see uh the way to join uh the show there on Thursday right there. It's all good in the hood and check that out there. So, but uh again, yeah, and it's hey, don't hog on the Movies America for yourself right there. Okay, hey, go ahead and and uh send the links out to you know your your friends, your family, all that stuff right there, okay? Send it to your your crazy Uncle Frank, you know, uh your your lazy sister, you know, Mary or whoever, all right? Uh there you go. Send it to everybody and check me out on Thursday. Now, one thing you can do here is if you haven't seen a movie and you're worried about spoilers, understandably, if you want to help me out here, which you know you may not want to, but if you want to help me out uh in a way that costs you no money whatsoever and costs you a whopping, what, five seconds of your time, is if you click the link to start the show in Rumble or YouTube, doesn't matter which, or both. There you go. Um, and it's and then just mute it. And in that way, you're helping me out with watch minutes, where you know the number of minutes people watch a show. And also, you're not spoiling the movie for yourself right there, okay? So that's what I do with like some shows, right? Like Sean Cav, who rated the show earlier. I'll fire up his show like on some computer having a back room uh where I unfortunately don't have time to watch it, you know, actively. So I'll fire up his show, I'll mute it, and uh, you know, then I then I'll go do what I have to do there. That helps him out right there. And so I just ask people that they do the same with my show. You know, if you gotta go to the kitchen, you gotta bake some chocolate chip cookies, and you don't have time to watch my show, just click the link, start up the show, mute that sucker, and go live your life right there. And that just helps me out. And it costs you no money whatsoever to do that right there. So there we go. Enough about that. But uh, hey, we got an unfolding joker up in the live chat right there. And he says, Van's the man with a movie review. Plan. I like that. That rhymes. I like that. Because there you go. There you go. I'm easily entertained by things that rhyme. I like it. All right. So, but thank you for that very creative contribution, Unfolding Joker. Ah, that is super, super, super sweet right there. So let's move on with the show. All right. And so now to a very important segment of every Sunday Movies America show. And that, of course, is when I tell you whether the movie for this week is a woke after school special. All right. Now, some of you might be asking, you know, if you're on the young side there, you might be asking, hey, uh, what is a what is an afterschool special? I know what woke is, unfortunately, but what's an after school special? Well, I shall tell you they're young'uns, all right?

SPEAKER_03 44:52

You young, you young whippers snappers who can't tell you. When back in my day, we had these things called after school specials, and they shook.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

So, an after-school special. What it is is back in like the late 70s, early 80s, maybe throughout the 80s, they had these shows where you would fire them up, you would watch them on show on TV, and they were these shows meant to like teach kids, you know, valuable lessons like, you know, don't smoke cigarettes, don't do drugs, uh, you lock the door when you jerk off. I mean, I mean, uh, um uh, you know, like don't get into uh, you know, vans with no windows, you know, rolling down the street, especially if it's got some guy, looks like Joe Biden, and he rolls down his windows like, hey kids, come on in and get your free candy from Uncle Joe.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

You can rub the hair on my legs, and you can, yeah, you can meet uh you can meet my fringe over here. Yeah, there you go. Well, you can meet my friend Corn Pop.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

So valuable lessons teaching kids don't do dangerous things, don't do things that are gonna get you hurt and all that stuff, right? So good lessons, you know. You know, their their heart was in the right place, but these after school specials were just amazingly, amazingly corny, very cheesy, okay? And so now uh with that, you know, now we've got all these movies that come out, and movies are meant to be entertaining or, you know, uh informational and entertaining, right? Not lectures, not sermons, and that kind of thing. And so we've had a lot of movies that in the last 15, 20 years are more determined to be a boring ass woke after school special telling you how to live the best tranny lifestyle and how to live the best woke lifestyle. And you know what? It's bad enough if you hear that shit for free, you know, but it's really bad when you pay 20 bucks a ticket at the movie theater to hear that crap, right? You don't want to do that. And so, yeah, that's my part of my job here at Movies America HQ is to let warn you if a movie is a woke after school special. So there you go. And so, is normal a woke after school special? Well, is the ice fishing better in Miami than it is in Minnesota? No, this is not a woke after school special. And I think Derek Colstadt, again, the writer of this movie, Normal, is smart enough to know that John Wick works, John woke doesn't. Okay. And I mentioned John Wick because this movie is kind of John Wick in small town Minnesota. So, yes, it's so happy days are here again, everybody. Uh, well, that's another uh 70s show right there. Happy Days, uh, partly starring Henry Wick Henry Winkler that plays the mayor here in uh normal there. But uh, but yeah, thank God, no woke after school special here. We've got filmmakers here that are smart enough to know, all right, yeah, uh people don't want to hear woke. They want to be entertained, all right. And this movie will entertain you. I mean, uh, you've got you know, gunfights, you get you got people getting blown up with grenade launchers in this movie, for God's sakes. You got people being killed by flaming police cars falling down on them and that kind of thing. Got great, uh, great, you know, gunplay, and you got C4 explosives, and you've got dynamite, and all the, and then you got ice cream, all the things that make life worth living, right? Explosives and ice cream. There you go. I mean, come on. Who what what 13-year-old you know uh wasn't happy in their adolescence with without some dynamite and ice cream? There you go, which is which sounds like uh the name of like some U2 record, right? Oh, dynamites and ice cream or something like that. Anyway, but I digress. But uh, yeah, that's enough of me telling you whether or not this this uh this movie is a woke after school special. All right, so my final thoughts uh about the movie Normal is of course, go see this thing. Go see this bad boy, go check this movie out. Now it's R-rated because it's got you know a bunch of F bombs and it's got some bloody violence in this. So yeah, don't take the kitties uh to this movie there. I mean, if you if you take like a you know what, 10, 11, 12-year-old to this movie, not a big deal. I mean, just tell them, hey, all those F bombs that you hear, don't say those words. Don't say that. At least not when I'm around. Okay. Say it when your grandma's around. No, no, no, definitely don't say it. Don't say it then, uh, right there. But so, yeah, I mean, it's it's not the worst. I mean, it's not like you know, taking your kid to go see 50 shades of gray or anything like that. But uh, yeah, if you don't want to take your kids to a movie uh with a bunch of F-bombs and bloody violence there, uh, understandable, uh, right there. And then get yourself a uh get yourself a babysitter or uh or some creepy guy that drives a van with no windows. Oh, wait, what am I talking about? What am I talking about? Did I learn nothing from that from that after school special? You're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to talk to strangers that drive vans uh with no windows there. There you go, okay. But uh all that to say is yeah, go check out this movie. Again, like I said, this movie came in at number seven at the box office, okay, uh, there. And it came in, you know came in at number seven behind some real cinematic suck, okay? So, you know, kind of help the movie out. Tell Hollywood, hey, we want more uh original action comedies like this. And you will be thoroughly entertained. You will not be bored for one second because the action, when it starts, man, it hits. It freaking hits uh there. So don't be don't be basic and just wait for it to come out on streaming. Okay. I mean, just to warn you, movie studios are uh starting to get away from that formula that a lot of a lot of couch sitters have been enjoying, where they'll release a movie in the in the theaters and it comes out five seconds later on five seconds later on Netflix or Amazon. They're starting not to do that stuff anymore. All right. They're gonna move away from that. So better to get used to going to see movies that you want to go see at the theater right there, okay? So there you go. But uh that's my final thoughts about this movie here, all right. But uh yeah, we're getting ready to wrap up this episode right there, uh right here. But real quick before I wrap up this show, I just want to uh just implore you, if you would, if you would follow me on the platforms, you know, the sites that I'm on. I'm on X, as I said before, under at Movies America. Uh, you can find me on Facebook. I've got a Movies America page and group there. I've got my Van Ebert uh profile page on Facebook. I'm on Rumble. Uh if you look up uh Movies America on Rumble, you're gonna see like three Rumble accounts. And if you would, please uh you know uh follow, subscribe, all three of them. That would be fantastic. Again, it costs you no money whatsoever. Zero doll, okay? And then also I'm on uh Gab, if you're a Gab guy or a Gab gal, I'm on Instagram as well. And uh yeah, just so check me out on all those platforms and follow me there. If you are so inclined, that would be fantastic. Again, it costs you no money and approximately 0.3 seconds of your time to do that thing right there. All right, so there you go. Again, yeah, if you want to go see a movie that combines John Wick with Fargo and uh and uh you know you know some in nobody there with Bob O'Neil, yeah, go check out this movie, Nobody, right there. But anyway, I'm wrapping up this show. And as I always say, get out there, people. Those movies aren't gonna watch themselves. See ya.